The Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity
Sermon
25 August 2024
The Reverend Dr Zachary Guiliano
Priest Vicar, Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford
I speak to you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
It is good to be back at St Bene’t’s, to be with all of you. And it is good to stand here in this pulpit. The last sermon I preached from this pulpit was at the beginning of March 2020, before the first Covid-19 lockdown began. Because for the last several months of my curacy, we were still under the strictures of that time, and we were concerned that if anyone stood in this pulpit then their breath might spill out over everyone and infect them. So the last several sermons I preached in this building were in the chancel, which was a very different experience. You couldn’t see everyone’s faces; it felt like a very different gathering.
That sermon was about thirst: our need for food and drink; our need for help and justice, for change in the world; and our thirst for God, for Jesus, for the stricken Rock with streaming side, ‘the bleeding Saviour of Golgotha’ – the spiritual food and life-giving drink he gives to us. It was a sermon, in part, about the Eucharist, at a time when we were going to stop sharing the cup and soon after the bread.
So it is also very good to have come full circle, to be here again, sharing with you in the hearing of the Word, sharing with you in bread and wine, the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But I am in the unenviable position of preaching at the end of a long summer of readings all about ‘the bread of life’. You probably don’t want another sermon about the Eucharist, but here I am to give it to you anyway.
It’s fine. There is always something fresh to say because Jesus gives to us his words, which are spirit and they are life. They give us Spirit, they give us life. We shall never plumb the depths of this mystery, never exhaust its strength, never cease to find new causes for gratitude and praise in the graces that Christ bestows in Word and Sacrament.
A little review: in case you have missed a Sunday because of holiday, or because you were in the Ramsey Room teaching our children, or (God forbid) your mind has wandered off one Sunday to think earthbound thoughts.
We have been thinking about bread for weeks. Ever since Jesus and the disciples tried to get away from the crowds and have a quiet meal to themselves, they have instead been surrounded by crowds. And Jesus, desiring to feed this people, took the five barley loaves and two fish of one little boy and made them into an abundant banquet. Such is the grace of God.
The crowds ate their fill, but they wanted more from Jesus. So as he and the disciples journeyed by sea and land, eventually to a synagogue in Capernaum, they were surrounded once more. Jesus’ teaching began again. He encouraged the crowds to seek ‘the food that endures to eternal life’,
In a classic example of bait and switch, Jesus made the people very curious about a food that gives immortality, so that the crowd says: ‘Lord, give us this bread always.’ And he responds, ‘I am the bread of life’. And: The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.’
It is only natural that they ask, ‘How can this man give us this flesh to eat?’ And it is clear, both in this chapter and in its place within the worshipping life of the Church, that we understand this eating in three complementary ways:
1. We receive Christ’s flesh and blood by believing in him and his words.
2. We receive them … by his offering of himself on the cross ‘for the life of the world’.
3. We receive through the Eucharist: as we the Spirit-filled children of God, eat the bread and drink the wine, which has been blessed and broken for us, over which the name and cross of Christ have been invoked, upon which the Spirit has descended to make them abound with grace and blessing.
Three ways: faith in Christ, by means of the cross, and through the Eucharist – all united. We should not underestimate the power of these holy things and their scandal. They are not to be taken lightly, but with reverence and thanksgiving. Christ’s words are not easy, at least not all the time. Our redemption through his death requires humility and confession; and, let’s face it, it is most unusual to gain eternal life by eating the body of the Son of God – even sacramentally. It may seem very normal if we’ve been doing it by decades, but it remains strange.
But of course, I am speaking to a group of people who know all this.
This is a church marked by faith. This is a place of true struggle to understand the Scriptures. This is a place of Holy Communion. How many of you received the sacrament of Christ’s body and blood in the past month? Dozens?
How many indeed have received it week in and week out for the past year and a half, one of the most difficult periods this parish has gone through? A great many of you. And after eating and drinking, you prayed together Sunday by Sunday: ‘Almighty God, we thank you feeding us with the body and blood of your Son Jesus Christ. Through him, we offer you our souls and bodies to be a living sacrifice. Send us out in the power of your Spirit to live and work to your praise and glory.’
In other words, in terms of our Gospel reading this morning, you are not the crowds who objected to Jesus’ teaching. You are not even the disciples who complained – though I think it would be a little in character for St Bene’t’s to grumble, perhaps even to sigh melodramatically over one’s troubles and doubt. But in all seriousness, are we not with the twelve? Jesus asks them:
‘Do you also wish to go away?’ Simon Peter answered, ‘Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. And we have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.’
We are there, with Jesus, seeking his words, sharing his life, believing in him, in the good times and the bad. We care for one another at the worst of times, and rejoice together at the best. The task for us is not ‘to believe’ simply, or even to eat Christ’s body (as if we have never eaten before). The task is to keep living this way: to keep moving forward, step by step, empowered by the life granted in Christ’s Body.
There is a task ahead. We have a picture of its challenge.
The lectionary today has paired the end of John 6 with the end of the book of Joshua. There’s a hint for us.
The scene takes place after the Conquest of the Holy Land. The 12 tribes have received their inheritance, God has fulfilled his promise to Abraham. The people have seen miracles. But they still have to choose: will they live like they did outside the Land, serving the gods beyond the River? Or will they serve the Lord? Will they continue in the way of life they have been learning.
Will we? Will we live as those who have eternal life – for whom eternal life has already begun? And it shall never end if we remain in this way.
This life is lived always, not simply at these moments on Sunday, when we gather for the Eucharist. We are meant to experience eternal life in time, as the people we are, in our families, in our neighbourhoods and communities, with our friends, at work, at play, always, everywhere. There is no moment in time left untouched by the life of Christ, no time when we step outside and stop being affected by believing, by our eating, by our listening to Christ’s word. It is transformative.
We are to be nourished and fed continually by our trust in Christ, every gradually transformed, until we see with new eyes, with all our senses renewed, and with our minds set alight with Christ’s wisdom.
Out there, on the streets, or in our homes and workplaces, we meet the true challenge of remembering who we are here, remembering who we know we are when we are here, and never departing in our understanding from this communion with God and one another. It is a bond and a life and a love that transcends time, crosses all physical boundaries, and is not ended but perfected in death.
This week, let me invite you to do something simple every day. Find a time, when you first rise, or perhaps before your meals, where you consciously take up the words you have heard here in the recent weeks. Remember Jesus saying, ‘I am the bread of life’. Respond in faith with the words of the crowd: ‘Lord, give us this bread always.’ And come to know the goodness of the Lord in the land of living.